Fifty of my 12 billion favourite songs from 1999 to now #5

10. Zero 7 – In The Waiting Line

Zero 7’s Simple Things released in 2001 is sometimes too saccharine for my taste. It blurred the line between trip hop and straight up pop music, and while it gave rose to many superfluous moments, it also had a few hummable gems in there. Tracks like this one, with its seductively sad vocals, bursts of soft elecronica and ridiculously simple song structures, make me want to call up Nick Hornby. “You can’t be miserable listening to great pop music, my man.”

9. Patrick Williams – Tears Of Julian Po (Download)

Don’t “hey, this isn’t a song” me now. This gorgeous arrangement of strings accompanies the climax of Alan Wade’s Julian Po in which Christian Slater puts the ocean in his pipe and smokes it. Branimir Scepanovic’s pensive words, as spoken by the protagonist, collide with fragments of dreamy gospel laments to great effect. One of those rare opportunities for us to rekindle love affair with our headphones and make movie scenes out of our lives. You have a nice day too, Mr. Patrick Williams.

8. Paul Cantelon – River Of Collections

Contemporary classicist Paul Cantelon must have had a field day composing Everything Is Illuminated’s soundtrack because his tunes sound like they’ve stretched themselves on a sunflower patch, chewing stems and dreaming about stolen nectar. A tantalizing mix of melancholy, beauty and penance. Yup, penance. A lot of characters come to terms with difficult parts of their lives in Live Schrieber’s film to find solace. Cantelon’s music pays tribute to such eventualities and sort of drifts away into ethereal heights.

7. White Zombie – Blood, Milk And Sky (Download)

Named after a Béla Lugosi classic, White Zombie, fronted by the one they call Rob, has the exact opposite effect on people as a breath of fresh air, which is overrated anyway considering that it isn’t too different from mild flatulence. Blood-curdling industrial metal this also isn’t. Their music is far more graceful in its intent towards brutality. Behind every slab of thundering riffing there is a unicorn winking back at us…no wait, I meant, a gushing of warm melody. This track from their Astro-Creep 2000 album sounds like Pink Floyd jamming with Toni Iommi and Peter Steele on a song written by Prince in a very, very bad mood.

6. Elysian Fields – Black Acres (Download)

NYC dream poppers/rockers Elysian Fields create music that moves from sensuality to disturbance. They call to mind the spookiest moments of Tori Amos, with richly-textured modern folk arrangements to wash it all down with. UK music critic Nick Kent once described their sound being “as sensual as a sleepwalker’s wet dream” and most of the tracks on their Queen of the Meadow album song testify to this. Black Acres has a harmony section so wistfully fragile that you almost fear for the mp3’s safety from malware threats. Singer / chanteuse Jennifer Charles sounds like exactly how a depressed 14-year-old shouldn’t. Of course, she isn’t, so it’s all very exciting and velveteen.

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Movie review: Gigantic Indians, meth labs and new age butchers

Since the influx of new music is killing time, I have had to delay posting the weekend movie reviews. I have got three Werner Herzog films and a couple of others by Jim Jarmusch left to watch, so next Monday I would be posting the complete reviews of both DVD box sets.

Dead Man: Jim Jarmusch films are bitingly funny. I wouldn’t be surprised if he hires genetically jacked-up vampire bats to write dialogues for his films. People like Jarmusch and Wes Anderson are brilliant in the way they use humour to drive home a particularly gray point. Quite unlike the more theatrical mainstream comedies that rely on execution of humour rather than its actual content. There is more of an onus on making funny faces than actually saying something funny. Case in point, the American Pie series and the decade of retardation it spawned. However, in Dead Man, there is enough deadpan existential humour to tickle seven generations of Nietzsches. And it’s not one of those “you’ve got to be Kevin Smith to understand the one-liners” comedies either. For instance, take the storyline. Johnny Depp plays William Blake, an accountant on the run who ends up meeting Nobody, a large and morose Red Indian in a desolate industrialized small town. After a brief discussion between the two, they decide to kill as many white people as they possibly can; there’s also Lance Henriksen who plays a cannibalistic bounty hunter out to get them by any means necessary. You might wonder, what in the blue hell is this shit? But I assure you…everything works really well.

The William Blake references, the black and white cinematography, Neil Young’s original compositions, Henriksen’s game face, John Hurt’s accent, Iggy Pop’s cross-dressing…gasp, yes…everything.

Spun: Jonas Akerlund’s Spun is a cocktail of few druggie films of the past two decades. Take half a cup of Trainspotting, add a large dose of Requiem For A Dream, squeeze a few drops from Go and throw in a few pieces of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, as well. But the thing is Spun is way more fun (not necessarily better) than any of them. I guess you can thank Renita Whited, the casting director, for that. The energy and exuberance that the Spun’s cast showcase seem so infectious that you almost get the impression that a strange concoction of mashed ecstasy pills and cough syrup was passed around during the shooting of this film. Jason Schwartzman, Mena Suvari, Brittany Murphy and John Leguizamo – all of them do a fantastic job of playing meth-heads looking for a fix and quite possibly, an off-the-road path to serenity. Props to them for going beyond what we thought they were capable of.

One particular scene stands out as a testament to how gloriously fucked up and fun Spun can be. Watch out for the conversation that takes place inside the car between Ross (Schwartzman) and Nikki (Brittany) towards the end of the film. Such twisted fun! For the sake of NOT sounding like I’m gassed up on a few concoctions myself, I’m going to downplay the awesomeness that Mickey Rourke brings to Spun as Cook. A serious challenger to the Michael Madsen’s Cool Cat Of Cinema Award.

Midnight Meat Train: Midnight Meat Train is one of the short stories in Clive Bakers’ Books of Blood, a collection of literary screams. I haven’t read the book yet so I’ll hold back personal biases about interpretations. For what it’s worth, director Ryuhei Kitamura’s film about a serial killer tearing through the heart of city metro subways leaves little to be desired. I say this because nobody should watch this, expecting the sort of subtle titillation that serial killer films such as Elements Of Crime, Cronicas and The Gray Man quietly stir up through visual metaphors and striking passages of dialogue. Watch this as you would those slow-burning, violent and strangely Lynchian Eighties movies.

Matter of fact, grab John Raffo’s Johnny Skidmarks and watch that first. You will have newfound respect for John Lithgow and Peter Gallagher. As for Midnight Meat Train, Vinnie Jones and Bradley Cooper are sort of alright but I’d say Jonathan Sela, the director of photography, should rightfully take most the credit. Who says gore can’t be stylish?

High Fidelity: Nick Hornby’s book is better. Much much better. And Catherine Zeta-Jones is as awful as always. With those clichés out of the way, let us focus on the positives. The music is friggin great. I mean, really really great… like one kickass garage mixtape. Featuring tracks by The 13th Floor Elevators, The Kinks, Velvet Underground, The Beta Band and Stereolab, High Fidelity’s OST is one of the finest of its kind. Oh and Tim Robbins is really funny with his character’s “so hip I’m square” douchebaggery. Wellllll…uhmmmm…uh huh…so much for the positives. Many have opined that the film had a brilliant cast and while the jury is still out on that, I must say that it sort of felt like the actors and actresses were sleepwalking their way through this film. Catherine Zeta-Jones continues to amaze us with her impersonation skills. Once again she plays a role of a woman who thinks she can act. Jack Black plays an over-excitable Pomeranian. Both John and Joan Cusack are wasted yet again (see Grosse Point Blank to see just how good they can be). The mediocrity of observation has started to hurt, so read more about the storyline here.

P.S: Mickey Rourke’s character Cook has been given a lifetime ban in three countries for the sheer amount of awesomeness he exudes every two seconds

P.S.S: Da Bear has reviewed one of my favourite independent American films – Shane Caruth’s Primer. Read it here.

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